Mankind has been intrigued for many years with the concept of using waste agricultural products, such as straw, to build relatively permanent domiciles and other generally permanent buildings. This concept includes replacing typical floors, wooden or metal stud walls, and ceilings and roof constructions normally used for on-site fabrication with panel boards made from agricultural fibers. The panel boards of this nature made in the past have had the structural and insulation properties of the conventional structures that they replaced.
Although the basic concept has been around for some time, various anomalies have prevented the commercial dominance of this concept over standard approaches. For instance, in the past, it has been difficult to manufacture such agricultural fiberboards that have a reliable and consistent density in the core of the fiberboard. In addition, the relatively high cost of manufacturing such a fiberboard was also a considerable problem.
Applicant resolved the problems of the past by inventing a method and apparatus for making compressed agricultural fiber structural board, as seen and disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,945,132 and 6,143,220. Although the inventions described in the above-noted patents led to the creation of a relatively low-cost fiberboard having a core with a substantially consistent density, it was determined that certain inconsistencies and inefficiencies were leading to rather large variances in the quality and the cost of the fiberboard. For instance, the straw utilized to create the fiberboard contains various moisture levels depending on the type of straw and the time of year in which the straw is harvested. Since moisture is a key factor in the resulting density of the core of the fiberboard, the failure to control the moisture level in the straw prior to and during the fiberboard manufacturing process led to undesirable variances in the density of the core of the fiberboard. In addition, due to the structural integrity of straw, it is often difficult to provide a consistent amount of straw throughout the process once the straw is separated and cleaned. Failure to provide a consistent amount of straw throughout the process may lead to inconsistencies in the density of the fiberboard. These and other various processing factors have lead to certain inconsistencies and inefficiencies that are undesirable in a manufacturing environment.